Robot That Functions on Coke, Until It Doesn’t

PeanutChuck / Comments Off on Robot That Functions on Coke, Until It Doesn’t

Coke Is It / 2004 / electrical and miscellaneous parts, rob

In this artwork, the routine destruction we do to our bodies, mitigated through corporate mass media, is comically expressed through a robot named C3 (parodying Coca Cola’s new low-carb product C2). C3 is a hex-crawler robot, outfitted with a CMUcam, enabling it with the ability to search and find puddles of Coca Cola placed on the gallery floor. When C3 finds a puddle of coke, it sucks the beverage up through an electrical pump, and then sprays it across itself. The acidic nature of the coke eventually eats through the robots skin, finding its way to the circuitry, causing it to break down. The robot is designed to find and consume until it kills itself. Companies such as Coca Cola deploy marketing strategies that completely infuse our culture with a sense of well being and elevated self worth that contradicts the actual benefits of the consumable product.